


Ikusaba Strikes Out

by harmfulmyths



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: A Bit of Implied Terrorism, Alternate Universe - Different Mastermind (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Talentswap (Dangan Ronpa), F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Mprov/Improv Fic, Multi, Strong Despaircest and Leon/Kanon Undertones, potato chips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harmfulmyths/pseuds/harmfulmyths
Summary: A baseball player and a soldier meet in a hallway at night.
Relationships: Ikusaba Mukuro/Kuwata Leon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Ikusaba Strikes Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the tradition of MPROV fics, unplanned improv writing that strings together randomly chosen words for a randomly generated pairing.

It's only the crinkle of his chips bag that alerts Mukuro to the presence of the Super High School Level Soldier. Mukuro's not good for much, but she knows how to listen to people, to really pay attention, to be a team player. Out of the surviving students, Kuwata and Yamada are the only two who go straight for potato chips, and Yamada is not subtle enough to sneak up on her. She doesn't have to be a triple-zero-class detective like Junko to figure that out.

She doesn't panic, doesn't turn around, but her heart does skip a beat. She does let a hand drift to the knife in her pocket. Kuwata wandering the school at this time of night can't mean anything good for her. A trained child soldier has something of an advantage in a Killing Game. She'd prefer not to leave behind such a despairingly simple crime for Junko to solve -- her sister would never forgive her for that.

"What do you want?" she says, and closes her fingers around the knife handle. Her voice is thankfully calm.

Leon's right hand lands square on her shoulder.

"Hey, hey hey," he laughs --  _ laughs! _ \-- when she whips around, ready to strike. Hops back a step, the empty chips bag in his tattooed hand spilling out a few crumbs. "Chill out, baseball, 's all good."

Part of her wants to punch the stupid smirk off his face. She can't abide guys like him, guys who think they can treat her like she's just a chick. Junko's always on about what wild animals men are, and, like with most things, Mukuro finds that she's right. Ikusaba Mukuro fought her way up through a hundred-player strong baseball club to play at the spring Koshien, to pitch as her school's ace. And all anyone ever has to say is that she was the first girl to ever do that, like that's the part that matters, being a girl. She's -- well, compared to Junko, she's nothing special, but she deserves as much respect as any other student still standing in this school. "You... didn't answer my question."

Kuwata drops the bag to the floor, and steps on it as he strides towards her. The bag makes a crisp crunching sound. He stops, and looks down at her. He's shorter and skinnier than he seems from a distance, but with his thick military-grade boots, he's got a good five centimeters on her.

"Just wanted a snack," he says, and shrugs. His eyes are so warm and honest. They don't look like the eyes of a kid who'd killed three people before he turned fifteen, and countless more since.

Mukuro remembers it well. That case had been a big deal, all over the news -- and then the government had tried to call in Junko to help out, and she'd solved it over the phone in twenty minutes. Rattled off the facts in a bored monotone. The Nakajima family went on vacation to Paris over Golden Week, took their beloved nephew Kuwata Leon with them. What auntie and uncle didn't know was that lovely little Kuwata was busy getting radicalized online… Junko had showed Mukuro his blog, later, and it was creepy as shit. Fenrir had promised him the world and Kuwata took up the offer, for the price of three corpses in a five-star hotel and a trail of violence across Europe and the Middle East.

"Chips?" she says.

"They were good," Kuwata says "Greasy as hell, but I guess that's what you want from chips."

"I'm not big on chips."

"Girl thing?" Mukuro must pull some sort of face, because Kuwata snickers at her. "Jeez, don't give me that look. You should smile more. You're pretty when you smile."

Despite herself, heat rushes to Mukuro's cheeks. She can't help herself -- she's never been able to take a compliment. Kuwata grins and grins to the point where it reminds her of Junko, this grease-stained smile that doesn't quite meet his warm, warm eyes.

"Not as pretty as Junko," Mukuro says.

Kuwata snorts. "No offense, but your sister's a bitch and a brat."

The knife in Mukuro's pocket is suddenly far heavier. She balls her hands into fists, and tries to keep calm -- no one should talk about Junko like that. No one has ever earned that right.

The hallway is dark, and purple-ish. Shadows play across the floor.

"She reminds me," Kuwata says, slowly, "of Kanon."

Mukuro remembers enough of his ancient blog to know what that's supposed to mean. "Do you miss her?"

" _ Always _ ."

And Kuwata's eyes --

Oh, she can see it in his eyes, that spiraling broken despair, that despair begotten from despair, despair so deeply inbred that nothing but twisted, rotting, garbage despair remained.

She'd been wrong. Kuwata wasn't on her level. With a talent like the Super High School Level Soldier -- well, she'd been pinning her hopes on Kirigiri or Ludenberg before they'd both passed, but Kuwata could possibly offer Junko the true mystery she deserved. The one true murder case, the most despairing murder case.  


Mukuro needed to keep off the grass of the stadium where the real pros played and despaired.

Despair without cause, despair with cause, there was nothing that entertained Junko more than despair. Despair was the last mystery left for her sister to solve, and Kuwata --

"You wanna know something, baseball?" Kuwata says, despairingly. "You know, the whole child soldier thing, I kind of missed out on a lot of shit. So Hope's Peak -- this was going to be my new normal, yanno. Go to high school, get a girlfriend. I was gonna be like everyone else. I didn't -- didn't want this."

Mukuro could kiss him.

So she does.  


It's her first kiss, and she flings herself into her toes, throws her arms around him, presses her lips to him. He stumbles back, and she pushes in further, further, like she can tell him just how thankful she is. Closes her eyes, it's like magic sparks, abracadabra, open sesame, opens her mouth and shoves her tongue against his teeth. Ikusaba Mukuro is kissing a boy, boy, boy, and it's thrilling, and he's so weak. Such a herbivore. Oh, he's so unresponsive. Oh, he's trembling. She's going to shatter whatever's left of this boy, and Junko will--

He tackles her back against the wall, hard. There's this loud cracking sound, and her ears are ringing.

The sound fades out, slowly, and pain trickles in from the back of her head. White spots splatter across her vision, and she slides to the tiled floor. She looks up, blinking rapidly.  


"Go to bed, baseball," Kuwata says, quietly, towering over her. He's shaking -- shaking, shaking with despair. "Go the fuck to bed."

So she nods, and staggers back to her feet. The floor feels unsteady under her as she walks away. She leaves Kuwata and an empty bag of chips alone in the hallway.

Kuwata's got a second chance to give Junko the mystery of a lifetime, here. Something more than twenty minutes on the phone. Something that dumb little Mukuro could never give her. All Mukuro's good for is reminding people of the despair they should be feeling, of the past they would rather forget. All Mukuro's good for is setting the game into motion; she can pitch, but the students here have to catch. It's a lot of work, being the Mastermind, you know -- she's not smart, not smart enough to give Junko the challenge she needs, so she's relying on her classmates to do the rest. But between a little bit of sexual harassment and a few dozen photos of Nakajima Kanon included with Kuwata's latest motive, she's hoping this time, maybe this case Junko will smile for real.

Despairingly, she doesn't notice the knife missing from her pocket until it's too late.

Ikusaba strikes out.


End file.
